Mandryk: Angry, old Tories no help to Harper

The decline of Conservative support in fortresses like Saskatchewan is startling ... but perhaps explainable. An Insightrix poll this week revealed that 39 per cent of decided Saskatchewan voters would support the Conservatives compared with 35 per cent for the NDP and 21 per cent for the Liberals.

Sen. Mike Duffy, a former Conservative caucus member, leaves the courthouse in Ottawa following the second day of testimony by Chris Woodcock, former director of issues management in the Prime Minister's Office, on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2015. The trial is expected to break until November. Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS

The decline of Conservative support in fortresses like Saskatchewan is startling … but perhaps explainable.

An Insightrix poll this week revealed that 39 per cent of decided Saskatchewan voters would support the Conservatives compared with 35 per cent for the NDP and 21 per cent for the Liberals.

This is hardly devastating news for the Conservatives yet, but their past Saskatchewan popular vote has hovered near or above 50 per cent and much of the current 39-per-cent support will be burned in large pluralities in rural seats.

The question is: Why? That answer might also be in the poll, which found men (43 per cent) and all voters 55 years or older (44 per cent) were more likely to vote Conservative.

As Saskatchewan has grown, it’s also become younger, more urban and ethnically diverse — a phenomenon similar to neighbouring Alberta, which elected its first NDP government this year.

But not all Tory supporters feel comfortable blindly ignoring what we’ve seen from the Prime Minister’s Office, some of which is now being played out in the courts in Senator Mike Duffy’s fraud trial.

The Conservatives’ biggest problem, however, may be those who can ignore such things — staunch, angry, older supporters. This became obvious Tuesday when the wallpaper that surrounds Harper at his campaign events started to come unglued.

Despite the fact that the crowd at such Conservative events is heavily vetted by party organizers to avoid trouble, Harper supporters began heckling reporters to stop asking Harper questions on the Duffy trial and what current chief of staff Ray Novak knew about former chief of staff Nigel Wright’s $90,000 payment to Duffy to cover his expenses.

Evidently, the Conservatives’ only problem is a biased media … or so one such “vetted” elderly Conservative supporter concluded when he accosted reporters after the event to inform them they were “lying pieces of sh_t” who cheated on their income tax. The man, sporting a ‘Doug Ford for mayor’ button, told reporters to “go stuff yourselves” when asked for his name, but he was later identified by the Toronto Star as Earl Cowan, who had previously come to the newspaper’s attention for urging former Toronto mayoralty candidate (and current NDP candidate) Olivia Chow to “go back to China.”

Of course, Conservative event organizers from Harper’s office did the expected by apologizing profusely to reporters, but many in the rank and file didn’t exactly feel an apology was merited.

What has since started to trend on Twitter is the hashtag #weareEarlCowan — presumably, a play on the Je Suis Charlie tribute that emerged from deadly terrorist attack on the French magazine.

Many of the posts from angry Harper supporters were more vile than Cowan’s outburst:

“Earl Cowan said what we are thinking and unleashed a shitnami of anti-CBC bullsh_t sentiment.

“#weareearlcowan are tired of the lack of support the media (CBC, CTV) have always given ourclig val=”0″/&gt; “By the media reaction you’d think journalists have never been sworn at before. #WeAreEarl”

“Other working women get sworn at work all the time. Why do journalista’s feel they are more delicate?” #WeAreEarlCowan

“I’ve made a point to RT nothing on Duffy … not a single word or report … no Duffy updates here … #WeAreEarlCowan and we’ve had ENOUGH!”

“Liberalism is a form of mental illness. It’s no wonder they don’t get it. #WeareEarlCowan”

“You’re bewildered at people who are sick of media lies and bias? #WeAreEarlCowan”

Yes folks, the Conservatives’ biggest problem is not the fact that one of the party’s biggest bagmen (an ex-journalist, by the way) is on trial for fraud or that the testimony of Harper’s former lawyer contradicts the PM’s version. The problem is the media, which not had only the audacity to report on the trial, but also to question Harper on it at his campaign stops, during which he only allows five questions a day.

Or so seems to be the view of many Tories blinded by their own anger and all too eager to vent it in a way that will only cause moderates to abandon the party.

Their defence of a loud-mouthed reporter-hater is now a bigger problem for Harper than the Duffy trial itself.

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Moe, Scheer and their ilk readily stoke anger over trumped-up complaints about any policy choice which isn’t fully subservient to corporate polluters, making patently flawed demands alongside false claims of public support. And they have no scruples about joining forces with racist groups in the process, even as they disclaim responsibility for that connection, writes columnist Greg Fingas.